A Few Too Few

Comments

Owl, The colloquialism, "a couple of" doesn't necessarily mean two. It can also mean "a small indeterminate number; two or more", just like "a few". I'm afraid if you really want to specify "two", you just have to say "two".

Tanwir, I think you got that a little garbled. No one would say "there are few too applicants..." I think you meant "there are too few applicants...""Too few" means "not enough".compare "many" = a lot, "few" = a small number.Then compare "too many" = an unacceptably large number,"too few" = an unacceptably small number.

Don't ask people where I'm from. Around here folks use the colloquialism "a couple few" when referring to an indefinite number of items as few as two and as many as...as...a lot, I guess. Sure, it sounds succinct, but couple it with the lazy pseudo-southern PA drawl and yew got yerself quite a phrase, boy howdy.

This is a good one! I think that you might think of it this way: few and 'a few' are the same thing, but use 'a few' if it is somehow qualified, e.g., '...but ONLY a few came.' vs. '...but few came.'. As a final note, if it were only 2 people, then most would say '...only a couple of people...', although 'few' is still correct.

I agree with the above. "few" is used to describe how many people are there. "A few" is used as sort of a noun. But they basically mean the same thing. Many times in English, phrases are shortened. So "a few" probably was originally said as "a very few".